Stabilizing Factor Fools Rush In
by NeverMineToHold
Summary: They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions... But is Rodimus truly motivated by those as he commits the heinous crime of a forced bonding? Who better to judge than Kup... method: spark, angst, non-explicit


Title: „Stabilizing Factor – Fools Rush In"

Status: One-Shot, Complete

Fandom: Transformers, G1

Characters/Pairing: Rodimus Prime; Kup; Springer, Arcee (mentioned)

Word Count: 2291

Disclaimer: I would love to own Transformers, but that honor belongs to Hasbro and some others... What a shame, so we'll never see any slash as canon... T-T

Rating: M

Beta: The great snare-chan! Thanks again so much for your help!

Summary: They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions... But is Rodimus truly motivated by those as he commits the heinous crime of a forced bonding? Who better to judge than Kup...

Warning: forced spark merge/"mind fuck" (non explicit!), character death, angst

AN: This one is the first in a mini series I'm writing. Next part will take a while, but this can stand alone, so no worries. Please R& R ^v^ Constructive criticism, suggestions, comments, – all that is most welcome!

Stabilizing Factor (1) – Fools Rush In

Rodimus rebooted in a blinding cloud of red dust, stirred by howling air torrents and ripe with the stench of heated metal and ozone. His vents stuttered as fine particles rushed through his filters and into delicate systems.

Red-flagged status reports clustered his HUD in triple-layers, blinking and overlapping. Disoriented, Rodimus ran a quick self-diagnosis, more due to Kup's relentless drills than out of conscious thought. He felt nothing aside from the heated sand under his plating, it scraping and trickling.

Rodimus skimmed over the feedback before attempting to move, forcing himself to be patient: weapon systems offline, communication down, spoiler-wings torn away, a dozen minor energon leaks and 15 % of his outer armor warped...

Listing the damage like that seemed to rouse his frame to the pain that ought to accompany it and he bit back a moan as he rolled onto his knee plates. He twitched, unable to control the random impulses, and felt delicate parts work out of sync. Liquid slid along his internals where it didn't belong.

Rodimus overrode the onlining emergency protocol before it could send him into stasis and deactivated as many pain receptors as he could. Numbness spread through him instantly, as if his frame and mind had separated. It was a disconcerting sensation, but better than the alternative. He had not been alone on patrol; the others that had accompanied him might need his help.

_Right. This is nothing to worry about._

„Arcee!" Rodimus called, as he struggled up from his hunched over position. His pedes slipped away under his weight.

He had to find them. They needed to get back to Autobot City, and comm. ahead, if possible. Shockwave's latest experiment dealt in suicide squads and it might target the other patrols right _now_.

Rodimus had failed during the assault on the city and it had cost them Optimus' life – but no more! _He_ was Prime now, and he had a duty to protect them... But hadn't he messed up already? Hadn't this simple routine job ended in a huge explosion? The others – what if...

_No. Don't even think that!_

„Springer – report!" Only the howling wind and silence answered his call.

Finally, on his third try, Rodimus remained upright, no longer slipping on the treacherous, shifting sand. He looked around – the landscape had changed drastically in the span of mere klicks.

The few plants left were pressed flat to the ground at the edge of a burned, black circle. The formation of boulders and rocks had been turned to powder, it swirling around as lazy dust devils rose. Pieces of armor lay strewn outside the detonations epicenter.

„Guys – where are you?" Rodimus hated it when Hot Rod's whine crept into his vocalizer. So unlike Optimus, who had never lost confidence. He had been a perfect leader and Rodimus was so far removed from that, it pained him.

Again, nothing moved, but he had been knocked out, so his team might have been as well. Although he wanted to believe it, a dreadful feeling began to settle in his spark.

He lifted his servos to his mouth plate to amplify his vocalizers volume, but stopped. As the dust cloud lifted, something to his right shone metallic green in a flash of sunlight. Rodimus would have recognized that bright shape anywhere and hurried over on numb pedes as fast as he could. Coming closer, he saw shoulder plates and the back of a familiar helm poking out from a newly formed dune.

„Springer-!"

As Rodimus reached for it, the vivid sheen of life turned to gray. A gust of wind removed the first layer of sand and revealed the 'copter's frame – charred, broken open and still. Half-buried under him lay Arcee. Springer had tried to shield her from the blast, but something had smashed her faceplate in; fluids seeped around it into the dark, wet ground.

_Gone. They are gone._

Rodimus couldn't control the sudden urge to purge his tank. He barely managed to turn away in time before he dropped to his knees and heaved up half-processed energon. It burned his insides and glossa and formed a puddle around him.

The sharp stench hit him like a slap as he chocked. It almost seemed to symbolize his weakness. To engage had been _his_ decision, _his_ mistake – why had the others paid the price for his rashness?

Kup, ever the voice of reason, had tried to caution him. He'd suggested they retreat or observe and wait for backup because something had been off about that Decepticon unit: their movements, their vacant optics, their rudimentary armor, and the weird box shapes attached to them.

Kup had said, „You're our _Prime_. Your spark no longer belongs to you alone, lad."

But Rodimus had not bothered to listen to him or Arcee, who tended to back the former Wrecker up. And in the end, taking him by surprise, they had deferred to him against their better judgment because he was their leader...

At that point, somehow, Rodimus ceased to think clearly – it felt as if a virus canceled all processed thought before its data sequence could be registered.

_Cocky, motor-revving punk!_ he could envision Kup saying, and it's true.

_Kup..._

He was Rodimus' mentor, friend, confidant, and counselor. Kup, with his unwanted advice, who scolded him with total disregard for Rodimus' reformatting – who didn't care much for titles like 'the chosen' or even 'Prime'. Kup, with his stories that were so ridiculous, they might even be true. The one with a well of experience, back from his service under Sentinel Prime and up to this cycle.

Kup, the gruff and kind mech who had chased the senior officers out to let Rodimus cry in his horror over Optimus' deactivation – and his sudden new role. Who saw every fault, but told him to believe in the Matrix, which had chosen Rodimus over Ultra Magnus, to everybot's surprise.

Kup, who was always there, right at his back...

_Kup!_

Rodimus broke through his stupor, finally realizing that there had been no trace of the old mech, and pushed himself upright. He swayed on his pedes like he was overcharged, distantly noting that his own condition had worsened.

Electricity sparked as he forgot his impaired sensors and attempted a scan of the area – only shadow signatures and a barrage of false location pings came back from the sweep. He would have to rely on his optics again – and he had wasted so much precious time already.

Rodimus searched for breems, at last getting closer to the last boulder remaining upright – _there!_ Half-buried under the rocky remains lay Kup. Parts of his frame were already turned to gray, but from a deep gash in his side energon still pumped in weakening spurts; the ground was slick with it.

„Kup!"

Rodimus swept the stones away with a careless strength he couldn't believe he had left in him and scrambled to find the torn energon line, before the old mech could bleed out completely. His digits were gritty with sand as Rodimus pushed them searchingly in Kup's body, but soon they were washed clean. He managed to staunch the flow long enough to pull an emergency clamp from subspace and close the ruptured tube. Pulling away, his servo and arm glowed blue.

„Kup!"

Almost white optics flickered online for a brief klick, somehow focusing on Rodimus. A relieved smile flashed over Kup's faceplate, before it contorted into a grimace.

„No!"

_Not him, too._

The gray patches spread further, draining the dark green away. The faint energy signal brushing against Rodimus EM field, so familiar it only now registered consciously as it fluctuated wildly, dimmed to a feeble waver. Kup's spark was guttering in its chamber.

_No! There must be something, anything, I can do!_

Then Rodimus remembered: Kup's story about the legendary Thirteen, the first Primes, and how their bond had sustained their brother's spark after a gruesome battle, until a versed medic had arrived...

Rodimus acted without a second thought. He found the seams and tore the heavy armor plate away to lay the silver spark chamber bare; its cover followed a klick later, falling with a heavy thud into the sand.

A golden speck of swirling light glowed weakly. Exposed to the sunlight, its tendrils unraveled and started to fade into thin air. At any other time, Rodimus might have been in awe – to see another's spark – but now the sight terrified him.

His own plating shifted and retracted, the code sequence foreign and the process slow-going. His internals glistened blue around his spark chamber and the Matrix of Leadership hidden there. Opening with a hiss, its cover revealed the white-blue sphere of blinding light pulsing at Rodimus' very core.

He had no idea if this could work to bind Kup's spark to life, but he bent down to bring their souls together, feeling a sudden pull – and himself falling, fading, into white.

XXX

A dark fog engulfed him, separating Kup from the bright light he had drifted towards. He had felt content in the knowledge that his destination lay there, that he followed the path countless others had taken before him.

Then the fog had spread and he was lost.

Suddenly, tendrils of pure white-blue reached for him, their energy pouring into his frame with brute, desperate force, like a silent scream of '_No_.'

Kup struggled against the pull that ripped into his core to reach its golden flow, to force it out and mingle. He careened out of control, but recognized the touch: Rodimus. He faltered in confusion – why would the lad be here? – and the energy used its chance to ensnare him tightly.

The pain let everything snap into sharp focus and Kup knew with unnatural clarity what happened beyond the veil, to his dying frame – and how it would end if he allowed this transgression to continue.

Kup was a master of Metallikato. Manipulating spark energy was what he did, whether he nowadays relied more on his rifle or not. He could have tried to reverse the flow between Rodimus and him, to break the forming web of links, and disrupt the synchronization process.

He _should_ do it, before this forced union could kill Rodimus or solidify into a bond, a shackle which could not be removed, a commitment of finality. But Kup hesitated. He tried to stay away, but he felt the first layer of Rodimus' very being give, laid bare for him to study.

Such a young spark it was, but already full of dark traces, cracks and fractures in something inherently fragile. The sudden pressure of his position as Prime thrust upon him, this infant stage of leadership, the burden of responsibility – it paralyzed Rodimus, who was reformatted in frame, but not in being.

And now, the loss of kin, friends, family – Arcee and Springer, gone. His fault, because Rodimus hadn't listened, was still a punk who could not hope to ever measure up to Optimus.

And Kup, leaving him, too. Kup, who meant – a burst of warmth and light, too tangled a feeling to name in this instant, but heavy with meaning nonetheless.

Underneath these self-doubts, thoughts, pain and fear, lay a dark rage. It was directed at Rodimus himself, the Decepticons, Megatron – at Optimus. Soon, it would be directed at everything and turn to hate, and could lead to his downfall. It would twist this young spark beyond recognition...

Yet, even knowing this, Kup could not help but resent this intrusion. Rodimus did not hold back, didn't seem to know how. He plunged ahead like a blunt weapon, not realizing what he was _doing_ or what pain it caused.

Kup should end it – the Well was beckoning to him through the fog. _„You have done enough. Come and rest with us."_

Kup couldn't. There had not been a true choice to begin with. His barrier shattered and his soul crashed with Rodimus'. The contact sent the young one into a frenzy of panic, drowning in the push and pull of vastness that was an age old existence, filled with all shades of experiences and not all pleasant; far from it.

It would crush and kill Rodimus if Kup did not take control and weave the energies into the pattern of a bond.

A _bond_.

: Do you even know what that entails, you fool? :

The Well called again, but only faintly, its million voices reduced to whispers.

: You will come to resent this, lad. :

An actual answer beyond panic and pain pushed through from Rodimus, flailing around in his own struggle, trying to find purchase in an immaterial world – it rang raw and true.

: Kup, don't leave. I need you. I can't do it alone. :

No choice at all...

Kup reached out to stabilize him, allowing for a controlled stream to connect and circle between them. What should have been a warm flow burned like acid as something snapped into existence.

All was swallowed in utter darkness.

XXX

Ratchet had managed to get ahead of the team. He had known he had to, as soon as his sensitive scanners had picked up the energy readings, because those could only mean one thing and he silently prayed to Primus that he was wrong... But he so rarely ever was.

He had no problem spotting the place and knew it was the explosions epicenter, right at the coordinates Teletraan had indicated. He transformed and took in the scene with horrified optics.

Without hesitation, Ratchet went to work on the battered, almost gone 'bots– and he tried the best any medic could to conceal the tell-tale signs of a forced bonding.

_Could anything good come from a deed such as this?_ he wondered.

End

AN: Feedback on the characters and their actions, as you see them, would be highly appreciated!


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